The Space Between
by chloedahling
Summary: It's Cas' last night on Earth. Dean promised him he wouldn't die a virgin. . .[set in season 5]


There were a lot of things Castiel missed about his true form. He missed the size, for one—it was so suffocatingly tiny in here, like a human suddenly taking the form of a bug, and when he was in rural places where he could see hills and mountains towering over the whole landscape he ached for the time when they didn't seem so enormous, when he wasn't so puny to them. He also missed Heaven—before it turned bad, that is—he missed the time when the Father was presiding over things, as he created the world in order to do, when everything was right. He missed the all the duties, everything being in its place. The world of the humans was riddled with vice that was so intwined in the lot of them, it seemed as if it were sewn in the feeble fabric of their society.

But there was something in this world that wasn't in the world of the angels. There was something in this body, at least, that was different. To feel a pounding heart, to press a soft finger against skin and feel the steady rhythm of pumping blood—those were things he never had the pleasure of experiencing in his true form. Most of all, he had never felt his insides simply swell before, he had never felt the terrifying and exhilarating emotion that seemed to plague him for every second he was in this body, every second he was around—

Well. It was certainly something new. It was something the angels didn't have, only the humans.

"Well, I'm not gonna let you die a virgin." Cas felt one of the bloody gobs of flesh inside him—what were they called? Organs—drop as the voice, so deep and sultry, floated through his ears. Funny, he would call it "sultry"—that was a word angels did not respond to. It wasn't a word that angels even knew.

Cas followed Dean outside to the Impala—his baby, which he loved as much as some people loved their children, as much as God had once loved all of them.

God. No, it wasn't time for him to think about that. Focus, Cas, on something else. Where the hell they were going, for example. When Dean said, "I'm not gonna let you die a virgin," that could mean a whole slew of different things. It could mean that he was going to enlist someone to help—a prostitute? a woman he was supposed to meet at a bar? someone else? It was daunting to think of all the possibilities, and it was funny how he didn't even have to do something like this. He still had the power to zap himself right out of here. But it was his last night, yes, and there was something about that which kept him knotted to Dean, which compelled him to stay even though every second he was reminding himself that he could run. And maybe, if this was something Dean found so much pleasure in, it wasn't so bad. It was true, he had never tried it.

The car pulled up. The obnoxious hum of the engine, the buzz and the click as the car fell asleep, he knew these were Dean's favorite sounds. These were the sounds that brought him peace. So he listened, very closely, absorbing it. If it was his last night on Earth, he wanted to remember the sensations that Dean loved.

"You've been awfully quiet, Cas," Dean said as they made their way into what looked to be a hotel, and his voice-Dean's voice made Cas want to close his eyes and drown, just drown in every droplet of sound rubbing against his ears.

He shrugged. What should he even say? He'd lived since the dawn of time. He was about to end the life that was so long it never really had a beginning. And yet he was trapped, bound to an emotion he had never experienced before in his life, and it wasn't fear. It didn't have anything to do with his own doom.

Maybe the humans would be all right. Maybe if he found God-no, Cas, don't think of it, don't-maybe if he convinced his Father to have mercy on the little puppets of his creation, then He could reverse the destiny that awaited these creatures, and most of them, if not all, could survive. Dean would be all right.

"I'm just not sure what we're doing here, you know," Cas finally admitted, and he felt accomplished. He was learning to fib as the humans did, learning to spill tiny partial truths to keep from revealing the whole picture.

Dean smiled, the mischievous smile of a man who spent his years with a bottle in hand and a naked woman-live or in a magazine-in sight. But there was something else in that smile, too-something that suggested a tenderness Dean was loathe to reveal. Cas almost wanted to burst then, to just right up and tell him that his tenderness was the part he shouldn't have to hide, it was the part Cas admired most about him. Dean cared, he cared so much about every other person around him, guilty or not, oblivious or not, he cared about what was his fault and what wasn't and whether any of his actions were causing the pain of innocents. Cas didn't have any of that. He had the body of someone who did, but all these cares and emotions weren't something he was equipped to handle and he was just lost in all of it. It seemed like every human was suffocating on emotions they didn't understand, but Cas didn't even know where to start with all these. What to do when the heart is racing? What to do when the arms are tingling with little bumps? What to do when something in his chest has grown so big he doesn't know if he can stand it any longer? "It's really simple," Dean said, and Cas almost jumped-something else he was very much not accustomed to. "She'll know exactly what to do, I promise." Cas puffed out a breath of relief, or disappointment. So Dean was on a completely different page.

The inside of the motel was dingy, as the outside had been. While the outside had flashed a sign in neon lights with the letters missing, the colors of the indoors were much more subdued: worn beige chairs in the front lobby, and the front lobby itself was an array of brown and gray. They weren't two steps inside before they saw the girls.

Not a single one of them was wearing anything close to the clothing in the street. Leg garments that looked like underwear left only a miniscule amount to the imagination, breasts were shoved savagely upward by very pink and very revealing bras, and the midriffs were spared of any clothing altogether. Cas had never seen human girls like this before; they pranced around showing every possible inch of skin, as if more of that squishy flesh was what would convince Cas that this was a good idea. You can still run, he reminded himself, but he looked at Dean and the hungry look on his face and stayed just where he was. If Dean loved it. . .

Dean moved at a slower pace to ogle the women licking their lips back at him, but they eventually made it to the front desk. "We'll need two rooms, and two girls. One for this old guy here." He nudged Cas, and his stupid human body ignited. A pile of green papers was placed on the counter, not flattened and straight as Sam would do but all crumpled up, and the worker at the front desk didn't look too pleased about having to unfold each one.

"Take your pick," the employee grumbled.

Dean was like a hungry wolf. There were six or seven girls waiting expectantly-and by expectantly, that meant tilting their head down but keeping their eyes straight on their prey and smiling dirty-and Dean beelined his way to the prettiest girl. She was a blonde with dark eye makeup and shockingly red lips, and there were a few black feathers attached to the clothing in her chest area that only slightly dulled the nauseating magenta.

"Hey, there, sweetheart," she rumbled seductively, wrapping her arm around Dean once he was close enough. Cas stood back, watching in shock. "Looking for a ride?"

Dean's next words surprised him. "Not me this time, sugar. Why don't you take a look at my friend over here?" Dean readjusted his body so they were both facing him.

Cas shifted his weight.

"This is Cas," Dean explained. "He's new to this, so he's looking for someone to give him a good first time. Think you can handle that?"

"Anything for you," the catlike girl said, again licking her lips. Usually, when a human licked their lips, Cas took it as a bad sign, but apparently these hookers were different.

The girl grabbed Cas' hand, so strong that the strength of his vessel wouldn't be enough to wrench away from her if he wanted. She led him a little down the hallway, and the door groaned open when her hand nudged it. He looked back at Dean, who was watching them with his go-get-it look, but the next time Cas snuck a glance another girl had leeched herself onto Dean, and that was the end of that.

There wasn't much besides the bed in the hotel room. There was a bathroom, of course, and there was one chair far in the corner that looked like it was used more for housing travel bags than actually being sat on. In seconds, he found himself on the bed, coat carelessly ripped off (not with his consent) and pinned underneath the slim but evidently not weak legs of the hooker.

So this was what the humans did for fun. Her lips latched onto his, not at all unlike a demon sucking someone's soul but apparently highly pleasurable. Her spindly arms drifted dangerously across his body, grasping his shirt and tugging on the buttons. "Mind if I break a few?" she grinned.

"Actually, yeah," Cas answered. "I don't really want to go shopping for another shirt."

The girl frowned, obviously not prepared for his answer. "All right then," she recovered with only a trace of awkwardness. "I'll just carefully," now her smile became more wicked, "unbutton. . ." Her hands felt cold against his skin, not warm, not exhilarating; just cold. Was this what Dean liked so much, to be pressed up against another ball of cold squishiness?

"Your hands are cold," he commented once it became nearly unbearable.

Her teeth were pointed when she grinned. "You like that?" She slapped a hand on his chest, which was now bare. "You like that, daddy?"

She was sliding her clothes off as if she was being paid by the hour. Which, Cas guessed, she was. "I'm not your daddy," he said, confused. "I'm a complete stranger whom you've never met before. Did your real daddy leave you when you were a kid?"

The woman's flecked brown eyes narrowed viciously. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, I'm sorry if your father did leave you, but I'm still just a complete stranger and I think you should find something else to call me."

He didn't expect her to scream. "Get out!" she shrieked. "Get out, get out, get out!" She lept off the bed, grabbed his clothes from the ground, and started throwing them at him as she shoved him out the door. At some point, she had deftly covered herself in a bathrobe that was probably from the bathroom or the tiny closet, so she was nearly presentable enough when she managed to push him all the way out the door and threw his socks at him before she stormed off.

"What was that?" Dean's voice came from behind him.

Cas turned and, trying to answer, scrunched his eyebrows. "She called me her father. I just told her that if her real father did abandon her when she was a child, then I was sorry."

Dean sighed. Cas was almost glad. It hadn't gone well, but Dean's how-did-you-even-manage-to-fuck-this-up face, however bewildering in context, was quite amusing.

They exited the hotel and retreated back to the car. Dean started driving before the air conditioning was able to warm them up, so Cas shivered and he was reminded of that predator's hands all over him. Eugh. He looked down at the shirt in his lap. When they slipped out of the hotel, Cas hadn't thought to reclothe himself in his lost garments, so he had just pressed them half-assedly to his chest until they got to the car. Now, they were sitting in a small heap in his lap, and his chest was bare.

Cas slowly lifted the button-down over himself, and out of the corner of the eye he could see that Dean wasn't looking at the road. No. He was most certainly looking at him, his. . .chest. Cas gulped and smoothed the shirt over his stomach, which on the inside was alight in a way he couldn't understand. He hadn't felt this before, not ever-well, he hadn't ever had a stomach before, but still this feeling had no equal in anything he'd ever known.

When they were inside the hotel, after Dean parked the Impala and slid the keys out-again, there was that buzz and the click-Cas asked, "So what do we do now?"

Dean shrugged. "Beer. Sleep. Wait for the worst." He grabbed two long-necked bottles out of the mini fridge and handed one to Cas. "Cheers," he said, almost smiling.

"To what?"

"Your last night on Earth."

Tomorrow, Cas would find God. He would try to make this all right, but he might perish in the process. And Dean-well, Dean would be fighting something much bigger, but there was a chance that he would make it. The bottles chinked hollowly against each other. Was this one of Dean's favorite sounds, too?

"You know, Cas, as far as angels go you aren't half bad." Dean took a long sip.

"I'm a rebel, Dean. A rebel trying to get everyone out of all this chaos."

"And that's heroic." Dean's eyes were like melted emeralds. "You've done better than any of the others. You have a bigger heart."

"Only my vessel has a heart, Dean. I don't have anything." Cas looked down at his bottle. He'd hardly had a drop of what was inside it.

Dean was close. He wasn't sure how he got there; if it was him that stepped forward or if Dean had closed the space without him noticing. Either way, he was less than a full arm's length away; Cas was sitting on the table, one leg crossed over the other, and Dean was above him; not towering, simply taller. He wondered if it was possible to feel particles, if there was an energy that could be detected not by sight, not by hearing nor smell nor touch, but just by whatever it was that gave him the erratic pounding in his heart when he was around Dean.

"I don't think that's true." Dean's breath was so sweet; it still had the masculinity that he was always trying to assure himself of-it was a sort of piney beer scent-but Cas had never smelled anything more wonderful. "I think there's something different about you, Cas. You have something that all the other angels don't have."

"What do you mean?" Cas asked, barely breathing.

"You help people because you want to. Not for alliances with other angels, not because you want to watch everyone pitted against each other while the world burns. You're helping us because you care. For no reason." Dean tenderly lifted his hands, but looked at them as if he hadn't even noticed he was doing it and promptly dropped them. "Maybe you do have a heart." Dean was looking at his chest, right where the vessel's heart was, and Cas wondered if maybe in the car Dean's stare meant something than he thought it did. Maybe Dean was wondering if the heart inside could really belong to Cas, too.

Cas took one of Dean's large, strong hands in his own and moved it slowly to his chest, on the side where his heart was working furiously. He placed it there gently, and Dean's hand was only a butterfly touch, but it ignited him. What was it that the humans called this feeling?

Dean stepped even closer. So close, he was so close-it was close enough for any possibility. Cas could bury his head in Dean's shoulder, he could stand up and rustle his hands through the chocolate brown hair, he could take refuge in him any way he wanted.

"I think," Cas gulped, "I think I must have a heart."

Dean's hand was still pressed to him when his head lowered, inching closer and closer, until their foreheads touched. He didn't say anything, but slowly, so slowly it was almost painful, his lips came closer and closer, until they were on Cas'. And that was it, they were kissing.

Dean's free arm hooked around Cas' back to steady him, and Cas was smooshed in a sandwich of Dean that was better than anything, ever. It was better than having brothers, better than sisters, better than the now-absent Father up above. He had lived thousands of years, thousands and thousands and seen and felt so many things and this man, Dean Winchester, who he had grabbed from the fiery gates of Hell-he was better than all of it. Their lips were together and it seemed like there was nothing before this, nothing before the slow massage of togetherness that confirmed all the things he had been wondering since he first met the man he was ordered to save.

It was clear, now. He loved everything about Dean. He loved his perfectly sculpted face and his bow legs and the way he smiled when he stopped worrying for just a second. He loved the depth in his eyes, the low rumble of his speech, his breath, his lips, his hands, everything. He loved that Dean was always hoping, even when there was no reason to. He loved that Dean believed in him even when Cas himself didn't.

"Mm," Dean growled. "Cas." He deepened the kiss, and it was so strong Cas was drowning, drowning, drowning, just the way he'd dreamed. He wondered how close two bodies could be, if he could wrap himself around Dean and not have a single atom of space between them.

Cas closed his eyes, untangling his arms to wrap them around Dean's neck. Together, they moved thoughtlessly-probably knocking over more than a few things-until they were on the bed, Dean on top. Dean seemed like he was being careful, making sure he wasn't laying completely on Cas as to smother him, but Cas didn't really mind either way. If he suffocated on the perfection in Dean's mouth, that was all right. They were so deep in each other, tongues tangled, breaths indiscernible from one another. Dean's hands moved to Cas' shirt, carefully undoing the buttons as his mouth was explored, and once it was all the way open he lifted Cas' torso up, moving his mouth to his neck as he worked the sleeves off.

Once the shirt was discarded, Dean pulled his mouth away to remove his own shirt, but Cas put his hands there, too, and took it for himself. He looked into Dean's eyes, and there was a moment there, a moment of you-take-care-of-me-I-take-care-of-you that sent everything inside the vessel into a fluttering frenzy. Dean's gray tee was dumped to the same place as the pair's other shirt, and Cas gasped when his head was back on the pillow and Dean's lips were on his. He groaned, and he felt Dean's lips curve. "You like it?"

Cas groaned again, and nodded.

Dean pushed his lips a thousand times deeper into Cas'-was this what devouring was? It was the greatest ecstasy. He rubbed against him, and the sensation sparked in Cas. "I love you, Cas," Dean said, and it was everything. All his years of life, and Cas would give away every second of it for this. He would give it all up-his past, his future, everything.

When it was all done, they fell asleep as they had ended it-naked, tangled, not one clinging on to the other but both of them clinging to each other, as if they knew that when their time was up, there was no angel and human. There was no superior and inferior, no immortal and mortal. It was just the two of them, breathing in each other as if it was the only oxygen in the world that they could live on, and until the morning hours they lived in that bliss.

It was Cas' last night. He had lived it.


End file.
